


Snow Falling Faintly

by Crowgirl



Series: Welcoming Silences [25]
Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Awkward Romance, Awkwardness, Friends To..., M/M, Non-Chronological, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Snowed In, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5275058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I suppose it is a good thing we didn’t take the car after all.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Paul stares out the barn door at the steady wall of snow coming down against the rapidly falling dark. He closes his eyes briefly, opened them again: snow is still sheeting down. It looks almost solid although he can see the dim outlines of the farmhouse if he squints.

‘Well.’ Foyle is beside him without Paul having realised he had moved. ‘I suppose it is a good thing we didn’t take the car after all.’

The farmer, a small woman named Violet Dalby, shuts the door of the tack room with a bang and comes to look out. ‘Aye, it’s a rough night.’ She still has a distinct Yorkshire accent despite long years on this southern farm with her husband. ‘Good thing Judy got home before it started.’ 

Judy Miller was one of the land girls working on Violet’s farm; she had been in town to pick up groceries and gave them a ride out.

‘It looks as though we may be thrust upon your hospitality, Mrs. Dalby,’ Foyle says thoughtfully.

‘Oh, sir -- I’m sure we can --’ Paul begins, waving his hand at the rapidly accumulating drifts and his words are caught out of his mouth by a dart of cold wind that sends snow swirling into their faces. He coughs and tries again. ‘It can’t be that bad -- perhaps the main road--’

‘Closed an hour ago,’ Violet says. ‘Heard it on t’wireless just as you came up.’

Paul bites the inside of his lip hard to keep from demanding why she hadn’t mentioned that when they arrived. He likes Violet -- he truly does -- but he could shake her in frustration right now. All this over some useless deserter--- 

He grimaces to himself. That’s not fair. It’s Violet’s eldest son, Edwin, they’re looking for. The boy had originally joined up with his father and, after Mr. Dalby had been posted to France, Edwin had tried to desert. It hadn’t been a well-thought out plan: he had just come back home.

Violet had talked him into going back that time and Paul had been the one responsible for making sure he made it back to his camp north of London. That isn’t a particularly pleasant memory. Edwin had been still and stiff as if he were expecting Paul to shout at him and, as they got closer to the camp, Paul realised he was sitting with his hands tightly knotted together because if he moved them at all, his shaking became obvious. 

He remembers wishing at the time that there had been something to say, something that would make Edwin’s shoulders drop, ease the tremor out of his hands. But Paul wasn’t enough of a liar to say that everything would be fine when he was living proof that it most likely wouldn’t.

This time, Edwin hadn’t done anything as neat as show up back at home but this had been the logical place to start. The forecast had certainly been threatening snow when they left, but it had been doing that for the past three days and the sky hadn’t looked any more lowering than it had the day before yesterday.

Perhaps he could make it back to town on foot -- it’s only a matter of fifteen miles or so. Foyle should stay here, of course, but-- 

Another blast of cold wind makes his left knee ache fiercely and he scowls at himself for making the mistake of thinking like a man with two good legs. Foyle would have a much better chance of getting back to Hastings, assuming he were foolish enough to try, and Paul’s well aware of how hard he would argue against any such attempt. 

Quite apart from any other considerations, he’s heard the horror stories about hikers getting lost in sea mist and walking over cliffs. He has no desire to add a story about the senior policeman who froze to death during a November blizzard to the canon.

Violet ushers them out of the barn and closes the wide door firmly. ‘Let’s get you settled.’

* * *

Paul stares at the small room with a faint ringing sound in his ears. 

‘It’s nothin’ grand,’ Violet says, turning on the light by the door. ‘And I know it gets a bit cold at times but the girls push the beds together like this every winter and they swear up and down that it’s comfortable.’ She laughs. ‘They won’t have any other room in the house.’

‘It’s fine,’ Foyle says. ‘Mrs. Dalby. Thank you, it’s...it’s fine.’ 

Paul nods a little numbly, still unable to think of anything to say, and sees Foyle turn to Violet. 

‘Thank you. I -- please give our apologies to your daughters.’ He waves a hand at the room. ‘For -- for turning them out like this.’

Violet laughs again. ‘Oh, you don’t know my lasses, Mr. Foyle. It’s an adventure to them, sleeping in front of t’fire. Right, then, I don’t have any more hot water bottles but I’ve got some bricks in the oven for you. I’ll just run down and fetch ‘em.’

Her footsteps die away down the stairs and there’s silence for a minute before Foyle takes a deep breath and says, ‘Well.’

Paul can think of nothing better to say than, ‘Yes.’

The room is small and dark, the curtains tightly drawn against the falling snow outside. There are several lamps in the room but only two are lit, one by the door and one over the bed nearest to Paul. The one over the bed -- well, beds, but only technically -- has a lampshade with a brightly colored tiger stretched around it, grinning out into the room. There are toys piled together in one corner near the dresser: several board games, a marble-chaser, some stuffed animals, a beaten easel splattered with paint, a worn tin xylophone. One particularly favored doll is perched on top of the dresser next to the window, her head lolling slightly to one side. Clearly Violet must have told the girls to tidy up. 

They’ve just been having dinner in the warm kitchen so he’s sure he isn’t judging the temperature correctly but it feels cool. 

Foyle simply walks forward into the room and sits down on one side of the beds. He bounces slightly, solemnly, and nods to himself. ‘They’re good mattresses anyway.’

The state of his back isn’t Paul’s biggest concern but he nods anyway. Then Violet is coming up behind him, hands full of flannel-wrapped bricks, and bustling him forward into the room. She puts one brick on the foot of each bed and stands back with her hands on her hips. ‘Now -- will this be enough blankets for the pair o’ you?’ She glances from Foyle to Paul and back again and Paul doesn’t dare open his mouth. 

Foyle presses his hand into the bedclothes. ‘I’m sure it will be fine, Mrs. Dalby.’ He runs his fingers over the top quilt. ‘Did you make these?’

‘Aye, I did.’ She nods. ‘You get those bricks in there and you’ll be warm as toast in two ticks. I’ll be downstairs with the girls for a bit if you need anything.’ She gives them a parting smile and is gone, the door closing behind her. 

The room is silent for several minutes until Foyle stands up and starts pulling the bedclothes back, burying first one brick and then the other. There _are_ two beds there, Paul can see the difference in the wood of the bedsteads, but there are wide quilts, made for a full-size bed, spread over both. Since Paul can feel the cold draft from the window even where he is by the door, he can see the logic: making one bed out of two has to be warmer and this is as far as they can be gotten from the window.

‘Can’t say I’ve used a brick as a bedwarmer before,’ Paul says, watching Foyle smooth the quilts back into place.

Foyle nods. ‘I have. They’re better than hot water bottles, I think. They hold the heat longer.’

Paul puts his hand on one of the quilt-covered lumps. ‘Yes, I can see that.’

‘Well.’ Foyle stands back from the bed for a minute and then looks up at Paul, his mouth twisted in a half-smile. ‘It isn’t perfect but I don’t think we’ll freeze.’

Paul doesn’t know what his face does before he manages to school it into something approaching neutrality but he also can’t describe the expression in Foyle’s eyes that he sees for a flash before Foyle turns to the other side of the bed. 

He bites the inside of his cheek hard, cursing the coil of heat in his belly and wishing himself back in Hastings, with Jane, in London, back in the _Army, anywhere_ but here. 

* * *

There are a pair of chairs and a low table in the room -- clearly play furniture from the marks of wear and paint stains. Paul puts one chair at the bottom of his bed -- or his half of the bed -- and pulls the top quilt over it. It won’t help a great deal but at least his foot won’t hang off the end of the mattress. He fusses with the bedclothes a moment longer than is truly necessary and, when he stands up, Foyle is sitting on the other side of the bed, back to him, unlacing his shoes. 

Paul feels inclined to pray or even to cross himself but he isn’t Catholic and hasn’t been near an Anglican service in years. His mother would be ashamed of him for that but his mother isn’t here to lecture him right now while Foyle, and Paul’s own awkward thoughts about Foyle, most certainly are. He sits down and flattens his hands on his knees for a minute, closing his eyes.

It’s one night. It’s an emergency situation. The beds aren’t really even _together,_ the blankets and sheets are still tucked in where they meet in the middle. It isn’t as though he and Foyle will be _touching_ or--

Heat sweeps over him in a wave and he can’t finish the thought. His fingers twitch on his knees and he can feel his cock nudging against the seam of his pants; he nearly doubles over himself in a panic before he takes a breath and makes himself remember that Foyle is facing _the other side of the room._

‘Are you all right, Paul?’

‘Yes!’ He almost jumps when there’s a light touch on his shoulder. ‘Yes, I’m fine!’ 

‘I know this isn’t -- well,’ Foyle laughs softly. ‘It isn’t ideal. I spoke to Constable Holmes at the station. They’ll be working to clear the main road as soon as the snow slows down and that should be later tonight.’ Foyle pauses for a minute and then continues when Paul says nothing, ‘So we should be back in town by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.’

‘Yes, I know. It -- it’s -- fine, I just --’ He tries for a casual shrug. ‘Not what I was expecting, that's all.’

‘Did you have plans for this evening?’

‘No, I-- No.’ It’s a Tuesday night and he wonders if Foyle had planned to invite him to dinner. ‘Did you?’

‘Nothing in particular.’ The bed shifts, the frame creaks, and there’s the sound of cloth against cloth. 

Most likely not, then, or he would say something. Paul scrubs his palms against his thighs and leans over to untie his shoe. He slips it off and runs his fingers over the false shoe of the prosthetic. What is he supposed to do about this? Normally, he doesn’t wear it while he sleeps -- the stump gets painful if he keeps the prosthetic in place for more than ten hours or so and sometimes sooner. If he doesn’t take it off now he’ll feel it tomorrow but--

The bed shifts again behind him and he twists around to see Foyle neatly folding his suit over the back of the other chair and Paul whips back around, face burning as though he had caught Foyle doing something indiscreet instead of making the best pajamas he can out of his shirt. 

Paul squeezes his eyes shut and counts to twenty, then takes a deep breath and counts to twenty again. He can feel his cheeks pricking with heat and his mouth is dry -- which is ridiculous for one glance at a man in shirt-tails. It wasn’t as though he had even seen anything embarrassing. Had he thought Foyle was going to sleep in his suit?

He tries to focus on the memory of Jane laughing at him one time when he got undressed and had forgotten to take his socks off. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he had even laughed with her. But he doesn’t want to laugh now and he doesn't trust his voice enough to make a joke to break the silence in the room. And this is the same, isn’t it? Foyle’s shirt covered him to mid-thigh and-- No. He shakes his head sharply. 

He stands up and starts to take off his own clothing, focusing his attention on the buttons, snaps, and zippers. When he turns around this time, moving to drape his jacket over the chair he’s made part of his bed, Foyle has a blanket around his shoulders like a child playing at Indians, and is digging in his coat pocket for something. He comes out with a small paperback and turns back to the bed. When he sees Paul looking, he holds up the book. ‘I’m glad I put it in my pocket this morning.’

‘Graham Greene?’ Paul guesses. He can’t quite make out the type from here.

Foyle chuckles. ‘Not my favorite winter reading. No--’ He sits on the edge of his side of the bed and hands Paul the book. It’s a thick little paperback, the corners worn round.

‘Izaak Walton.’ Paul flicks through the pages. ‘I’ve never read it.’

Foyle accepts the book back and shrugs. ‘I find it quite soothing.’ He gestures towards the curtained window. ‘Especially in winter. Some people read about gardening--’ He holds up the book. ‘--I read about fishing.’

‘I know I never want to read another Zane Grey again,’ Paul says, pulling his tie loose and dropping it over the chair back. 

‘Bad?’

‘Painful.’ 

‘Didn’t the hospital library have anything better?’

Paul shakes his head. ‘Not really. I ended up with some Beverley Nichols thing.’ 

Foyle laughs. ‘Couldn’t Jane bring you something?’

Paul shrugs. ‘I never asked her.’

Foyle has gone strangely still and now he looks up at Paul. ‘I’m -- sorry, I didn’t--’

Paul waves a hand, turning around to perch on the side of the bed and debate about his trousers. He certainly can’t take them off and talk to Foyle about light literature at the same time. ‘It’s all right, sir. She’s -- we --’ He searches for a word he knows he won’t find and settles for silence instead. Any words he can find come too close to something he doesn’t really want to say aloud: _I’m starting to doubt that we were ever really that well-suited. I think she wanted me to be a man I’m not. I think she thought I was a man I’m not._ And, more dangerously: _I think being around you is making me want to be a man I'm not -- but that maybe I could be._

He eases his trousers off over the prosthetic and looks down at it gloomily. If he takes it off -- hell, if he turns _around_ \-- the scar will be clearly visible even in this low light. He sits up slightly and tugs a blanket out from under himself, draping it over his knees and undoes the prosthetic under the cover. 

He’s careful to tuck the straps neatly around the false leg and pulls the blanket down over his shin, letting it hang as though to cover toes he no longer has. He scowls at the prosthetic and moves to pick up his trousers, puddled on the floor. 

‘Here.’ Foyle picks them up before he can and shakes them out, folding them neatly over the back of the chair.

Paul blinks up at him. He hadn’t even heard him move and Foyle points to the light, now extinguished, by the door. ‘Turning off the lights.’

‘Oh.’ 

Foyle stands by the chair for a minute, his hands on the back. ‘Do you need anything for your leg?’

‘No.’ Paul resists the urge to kick the prosthetic out of sight under the bed.

Foyle nods and returns to his side of the bed, slipping under the bedclothes and rustling the blankets for a minute. Paul punches his pillow into shape and lies down -- the bed is surprisingly comfortable. As Foyle had said, the mattress is good, solid and just yielding enough, and Violet clearly believes in thick blankets: he can feel the weight of them over him. 

He shivers slightly -- there isn’t a draft from the window so much as a steady pulse of cold air -- and pulls the blankets up, searching with his foot for the warm brick. He finds it -- and then he finds it again. ‘Er -- sir --’

Foyle has his elbows out over the blankets, the pillow propped up against the wall behind him, tilting his book to catch the best light from the tiger-shaded lamp above Paul’s head. ‘Yes?’

‘I believe I’ve found something of yours--’ Paul knocks the highest brick up towards his hand with his knee, stretching down under the blankets to grab it.

‘No, no--’ Foyle touches his arm. ‘Keep it. I’m quite warm enough.’ 

‘But--’ Paul hesitates, hand on the flannel. There’s something happening here and he’s missing it. He looks at Foyle who has gone back to his book and, as Paul watches, turns over a page. But his eyes don’t move down the lines of type and-- Well, sometimes the only way to get an answer is to ask the question. ‘Do I look cold, sir?’

Foyle looks up at him again and this time there’s a faint but definite flush over his cheekbones as he looks back down at the page. ‘I thought you might like it for your leg. The last time I had a healing wound like that, heat was the only thing that felt good.’

Paul knows he’s staring but he can’t make himself stop. He can’t remember the last time something that simple had brought up this feeling of tight warmth in his chest. Or perhaps he can: maybe it was when Foyle first invited him for dinner? or perhaps the third or fourth time when he realised Foyle had saved meat rations for the meal? or the evening a few months ago when they had played cards, Paul teaching Foyle how to play a complex version of gin rummy and Foyle’s surprised laugh when he won the first hand? or maybe-- 

He gives up. He’s not a fool and, even if he were, the common thread is almost painfully obvious. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Foyle is looking fixedly at his book. ‘You’re welcome.’

Paul nudges the bricks into place with his foot -- the pressure and heat of the flannel-wrapped brick does feel good against the stump of his shin -- and eases himself down in the bed, pulling the pillow into place under his head. He folds his hands over his chest and looks up at the ceiling. _Thank you_ doesn’t feel like enough -- it isn’t what he wants. His fingertips tingle to reach out and touch -- a simple clasp on the shoulder in gratitude would be entirely reasonable -- but he doesn’t dare let himself because, just for a moment, it had seemed perfectly logical to lean over and kiss Foyle in thanks. 

Perhaps he is simply over-reacting -- after all, Foyle has been nothing but considerate whereas Jane had, quite literally, crossed the country to get away from him. Perhaps he is allowing himself to be too struck by what is really only basic kindness.

Paul sneaks a sideways glance at Foyle, then covers his eyes with one hand, hoping it looks as though he is just shielding himself from the light. 

No, this isn’t as simple as being over-grateful. This is all tied up in the arch of Foyle’s cheekbone and the easy strength of his hands, the quick blue spark of his eyes and his infrequent smile that Paul is beginning to realise he would do a great deal to provoke.

The room is silent and Paul is starting to feel sleepy when Foyle clears his throat quietly. Almost conversationally, he reads: ‘The trout, for which I love to angle above any fish, may be justly said, as the ancient poets say of wine, and we English say of venison, to be a generous fish, because he has his seasons.’

Paul has no idea what to do so he does nothing and lies as he is, listening to Foyle read about the seasons of the trout and fishing brooks in Kent and somewhere in the middle of it he drifts into a dream of a wide sunlit river and Foyle sitting beside him on the bank.


	2. Chapter 2

Foyle reads until his throat starts to feel dry and then stops and drops the book on his chest, rubbing at his eyes with his fingertips. Paul’s breathing is deep and slow beside him and no matter what he tries there’s no way he can read aloud for the whole night to distract himself. 

So he closes the book firmly, drops it on the floor beside the bed, and reaches up to turn off the lamp. He doesn’t let himself look down at Paul but snaps the lamp off and slides back down under his own blankets. 

Paul makes a small muttering sound and there’s a rustling noise as he shifts. Foyle closes his eyes firmly and focuses on the whispering sound of the snow brushing against the window. The bed is comfortable if a bit short and he pulls the blankets up around his shoulders to compensate for the steady waft of cold from the window. 

He fixes his attention on small things: the snow, how he’ll have to dig out his front steps before he can get in the house, if he remembered to close off the waterbutt in the back garden properly, whether Walton was right about trout making for the most enjoyable angling. The snow ticks and brushes against the window and it blends together with the river in his thoughts and turns into a warm blur. The quiet in the room, the soft in and out of Paul’s breath, the hiss of the snow all blend together into the run of the river in his dream. 

* * *

Foyle turns towards the sound of his name instinctively before he realises how odd it is to hear someone speak in the unpopulated landscape of his dream. He half-opens his eyes and peers into the darkness of the bedroom, squinting at the outline of the window, and hears nothing. He tugs the blankets up over his shoulders and closes his eyes again -- then hears the bedframe creak as Paul moves and mutters something indistinct. 

‘It’s all right,’ Foyle whispers before he thinks, turning his head towards Paul’s side of the bed. ‘Go back to sleep.’ 

There’s another creak and he feels Paul twist towards him, the blankets catching against his own and pulling on his arm. Paul mumbles into his pillow and makes a small noise of distress deep in his throat. 

Still half-asleep, Foyle reaches out across the small space between them and finds Paul’s shoulder, the side of his throat, the curve of his cheek, and rests his palm there. Paul sighs and turns towards him and lets out a long breath that almost sounds like Foyle’s name. After a moment, Paul’s breath evens out and his head settles against Foyle’s hand. 

Foyle lets his eyes close. He doesn’t want to disturb Paul again by pulling his hand back and he’s sure he isn’t going to fall back asleep immediately. He lets himself sink back into the bedclothes, shrugging them up around his shoulders. What he’s doing probably isn’t what he should be doing but it’s the middle of the night in a strange house during a blizzard and he’s still more than half-asleep. All he’s trying to do is keep Paul from having a nightmare -- God only knows he remembers some of his own dreams after 1918. 

So he stays where he is, listening to the sound of Paul’s breathing.


	3. Chapter 3

Paul is never able to decide if he is dreaming or not when he opens his eyes, hearing the wind rattle against the window, and sees Foyle facing him and asleep only a hands-breadth or so away. He can feel something warm under his cheek, something harder than the pillow under his chin. He slips a hand over the pillow and feels skin, a soft prickle of hair, the blunt edge of a thumbnail. He can smell, too, soap that isn't his.

He doesn’t even shift his head on his pillow, just closes his eyes again. If this is a dream, he wants it to continue.

**Author's Note:**

> Had Kivrin, elizajane, and I come up with this challenge in a more timely manner, I would have been able to post it in proper chronological order and tease you all with the smut chapter a little bit longer. As it is, it properly comes before section [XXI](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5200301) and takes place in November 1940, the month before that night.
> 
> Thanks as always to my glorious beta readers [elizajane](http://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane) and [Kivrin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kivrin).
> 
> The title for this piece comes from James Joyce's "The Dead" in _The Dubliners_.
> 
> The version of _The Compleat Angler_ which Foyle is reading is the 1869 reprint of the 1653 original, available [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=UUkDAAAAQAAJ&source=gbs_slider_cls_metadata_7_mylibrary) through Google Books. I took the liberty of converting parentheses to commas given that there's no way to pronounce a parenthesis when reading aloud.
> 
> And Mrs. Violet Dalby is a nod to the character of the same last name from James Herriott's stories.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [...or perhaps like this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5371616) by [elizajane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane)




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